Various brushes, mostly raphael 8404 no 4 or a W&N series 7 no 4 (I like bigger brushes) and pens, map & maru deleter nibs. I believe this was the last of my Eon brand black ink and Eon branded bristol board in a plate finish. This is about 3-4 hours of inking squished down under 7 minutes.

The Next Dance kickstarter is winding down and only a few hundred dollars away from being a success. Head over and take a look all reward tiers are still open from a print copy of the book to original art and sketches.

From this I print out bluelines directly onto 2 sheets of 11"x17" bristol board, taped them together and start inking.

Here I've ruled in some straight lines with a tech pen. Ignore the big spray splatter, I was testing out a mini spray bottle with ink.

Blocked in some solid blacks and started in on The Deserter (the yellow jacket).

Finished the antennae of the ancient centipede, The Deserter, a few background centipedes and started on rendering Bran's fur. Also did some experimenting with texture for what should be insulation between the rafters.

Closeup

Finished The Deserter's wings and started on the ancient. Lots of texture on his crusty old shell and legs.

More detail work.

Finished up the ancient, outlined some more background centipedes and inked Tal Salwin, a centipede general.

Finally the 2 spiders in the foreground (Impatience & Gallop) and Bran's tail. A few random splatters and reverse lines added in too.

Close up of some spider butt.

The spread scanned in and blacks adjusted in photoshop. Finished size of 22"x17" at 300dpi

Colors done by the great John Hunt bringing the characters to life.

Finally the published spread with Devon's letters and the credits on the inside of the front cover.

I'll be sure to post some more process stuff in the future. If you have any questions leave a comment or contact me. Hope you enjoyed seeing this spread come to life.

One of the most often asked requests I get is if someone can watch me work. While I enjoy watching the process used by other artists I find my own way of doing things uninteresting. When sitting at a table during a comic con you just need to let go and not feel awkward drawing in front of people, but usually I'm in my studio with my dog as the only silent witness to my trash can full of awful sketches that will never see the light of day.

With the third chapter of Wretched Things out now I'm going to walk through my process for creating the opening double page spread, which included the credits page that is found at the front of all comics. Why the hell would you do such a thing? Well it sounded cool and cinematic when Devon pitched the idea to me and he did a helluva job describing the scene in the script. I'm always in for a challenge no matter how much extra work I create for myself.

Here's the script for the opening spread

From here it's scribbling on the script page and on random pieces of paper to come up with layouts and visual ideas.

Here's one idea, however I didn't feel like it would work by leaving enough empty space on the left for all the credits and publisher info

Small thumbnail of what was explored for the final layout

Here's the final layout. This was sent around to the various people at our publisher to get approval as we were deviating from the established design of the series as to the credits and opening pages. Once we got all the approvals this was refined even more.

Here's the final spread as digital pencils. Details have been added in for all the hero characters. Some changes were made with the spiders and centipedes. Some background centipedes were also added in to populate the scene. From here it is converted to bluelines and printed to be traditionally inked.

I'll stop here for now and continue on to the inking process in part 2.

Being an artist is a full time job. It takes self motivation and commitment. I can't stress that enough when doing production type art and comics/graphic novels. When I tell people that each page can take 10 or more hours they look at me confused. When I reveal that I didn't do the colors for Wretched Things they simply don't understand it. Then I start explaining that I need to take the script and turn those words into pictures. Design characters, pose them, find the right 'camera' angles for each panel, throw down some perspective (for each panel!), populate the panel with characters, props, background buildings and characters, then render in details (dear god the fur and spikes in this series), make sure the scenes are lit right, it goes on and on.

I'm not writing this to complain. I won't get into working 2 full time jobs and clocking over 100 hours on the average week. I love creating art. I'll stand up outside and weld all day, throw paint at a canvas until the brushes start falling apart or sling ink onto paper until I notice the sun is rising and I've been at it all night. Why I'm writing this is so many don't appreciate the amount of work and effort that goes into creating. So many people aren't willing to pay or when they hear the price quickly run away or worse try and haggle to some obscenely low rate.

Seriously art takes time. Time costs money. Are you going to donate 10+ hours of your time to me for every page I draw? I'll have you walk my dog, do the laundry, cook meals, etc. If the answer is no then don't ask me to work on spec or for some absurdly low rate.

Issue #1 has been out a few weeks now. Issue #2 is taking longer than hoped but we're only a few pages away from that goal. Working 48 hours per week at the fire dept. then the same if not more in the studio has taken its toll. That said I am happy for the opportunity to be doing both. It is a great feeling seeing the finished product and hearing the positive feedback and knowing that someone actually cared enough to already pirate it and make it available for illegal download.

One of the most asked questions I've been getting is along the lines of 'What's the most messed up thing you've had to draw?' For Wretched it has all been pretty crazy. Lots of fantastic environments, creepy things with lots of hairy legs and huge freakin fangs. Though spider on spider torture would probably be the most twisted item.

Back to the drawing board for now. Make sure to check out Wretched Things #1 over on comixology.com!

Issue #1 of Wretched Things is fully colored and the lettering is getting the final tweaks and polish.

I learned a lot about my production process during this issue. While I was happy with the results I was certainly producing slower than I had hoped. Some of that was due to scheduling and an injury at work but a big part of it was how I was working. I talked to a bunch of other artists and I think I've refined the process down where I can produce the quality I want in a more timely fashion. That and becoming more familiar with the tools I'm using and the characters Devon has populated this story with.

I've also made it a point to take weekends off, at least from drawing comics. Apart from family time it will be spent on sculpting and painting. Stepping away from comics for a day or two is definitely needed for both physical and mental health.